•  19
    Deference, degree and selfhood
    Philosophy 80 (2): 249-260. 2005.
    The world we lost, and now barely understand, was one where everyone knew her place, and her attendant duties. Civilized groups were the likeliest to insist on a diversity of rôle and rule. Primitive societies are ones where there are rather fewer such distinctions. Slaves and merchants offered a way of being outside the orders, and from the older point of view, the life of slaves and merchants is exactly what the ‘liberal’ ideal entails. No one can count on her connections; everything is up for…Read more
  •  62
    Feyerabend's conquest of abundance
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 45 (2). 2002.
    (2002). Feyerabend's Conquest of Abundance. Inquiry: Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 249-267.
  •  90
    Review: Religious commitment and secular reason (review)
    Mind 111 (443): 639-643. 2002.
  •  37
    Have biologists wrapped up philosophy?
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 43 (2). 2000.
    An examination of the currently fashionable thesis that scientists, and especially biologists in the wake of the Darwinian Revolution, can now solve the problems that traditional philosophers have only talked about. Past philosophers, for example during the Enlightenment, have themselves made use of contemporary, scientific techniques and theories. The present claim may only be another such move, to be welcomed by philosophers who would distinguish themselves from rhetoricians. Others may prefer…Read more
  •  55
  •  116
    The evolution of language: Truth and lies
    Philosophy 75 (3): 401-421. 2000.
    There is both theoretical and experimental reason to suppose that no-one could ever have learned to speak without an environment of language-users. How then did the first language-users learn? Animal communication systems provide no help, since human languages aren't constituted as a natural system of signs, and are essentially recursive and syntactic. Such languages aren't demanded by evolution, since most creatures, even intelligent creatures, manage very well without them. I propose that repr…Read more
  • Nothing without mind
    In James H. Fetzer (ed.), Consciousness Evolving, John Benjamins. 2002.
  •  61
    Non-personal minds
    In Minds and Persons: Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 53, Cambridge University Press. pp. 185-209. 2003.
    Persons are creatures with a range of personal capacities. Most known to us are also people, though nothing in observation or biological theory demands that all and only people are persons, nor even that persons, any more than people, constitute a natural kind. My aim is to consider what non-personal minds are like. Darwin's Earthworms are sensitive, passionate and, in their degree, intelligent. They may even construct maps, embedded in the world they perceive around them, so as to be able to co…Read more
  •  73
    Minds, memes, and multiples
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 3 (1): 21-28. 1996.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Minds, Memes, and MultiplesStephen R. L. Clark (bio)AbstractMultiple Personality Disorder is sometimes interpreted as evidence for a radically pluralistic theory of the human mind, judged to be at odds with an older, monistic theory. Older philosophy, on the contrary, suggests that the mind is both plural (in its sub-systems or personalities) and unitary (in that there is only one light over all those lesser parts). Talk of gods and …Read more
  •  81
    Minds, memes, and rhetoric
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 36 (1-2): 3-16. 1993.
    Dennett's Consciousness Explained presents, but does not demonstrate, a fully naturalized account of consciousness that manages to leave out the very consciousness he purports to explain. If he were correct, realism and methodological individualism would collapse, as would the very enterprise of giving reasons. The metaphors he deploys actually testify to the power of metaphoric imagination that can no more be identified with the metaphors it creates than minds can be identified with memes. That…Read more
  •  30
    Slaves and Citizens
    Philosophy 60 (231): 27-. 1985.
    R. M. Hare has argued 1 that there are conceivable circumstances in which it would be right not to abolish the institution of slavery: in the imaginary land of Juba established slave-plantations are managed by a benevolent elite for the good of all, no ‘cruel or unusual ’ punishments are in use, and citizens of the neighbouring island of Camaica, ‘free ’but impoverished, regularly seek to become slaves. Hare adds that it is unlikely, given human nature, that ‘masters ’would treat ‘slaves ’humane…Read more
  •  5
    Form and Transformation: a study in the philosophy of Plotinus
    Philosophical Books 36 (1): 40-42. 1995.
  •  18
    Plotinus (review)
    International Philosophical Quarterly 34 (3): 382-384. 1994.
  •  26
    Patrides, Plotinus and the Cambridge Platonists
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (5): 858-877. 2017.
    Discussion of the Cambridge Platonists, by Constantinos Patrides and others, is often vitiated by the mistaken contrasts drawn between those philosophers and late antique Platonists such as Plotinus. I draw attention especially to Patrides’s errors, and argue in particular that Plotinus and his immediate followers were as concerned about this world and our immediate duties to our neighbours as the Cambridge Platonists. Even the doctrine of deification is one shared by all Platonists, though it i…Read more
  •  36
    Plotinus on intellect – eyjólfur kjalar Emilsson
    Philosophical Quarterly 59 (235): 357-359. 2009.
    No Abstract
  •  22
    People, as Aristotle said, are political animals. Mainstream political philosophy, however, has largely neglected humankind's animal nature as beings who are naturally equipped, and inclined, to reason and work together, create social bonds and care for their young. Stephen Clark, grounded in biological analysis and traditional ethics, probes into areas ignored in mainstream political theory and argues for the significance of social bonds which bypass or transcend state authority. Understanding …Read more
  •  4
    God's world and the great awakening
    Oxford University Press. 1991.
    In this book, Stephen R.L. Clark defends the primary faith of humankind, that there is a real world which is more than a shadow of our desires and fancies, and which can be discovered through right reason. Focusing on the way in which we can "turn aside" to the Truth from the normal delusions of self-concern, Clark offers a properly worked, Platonic metaphysics as the key to identifying that reality. This book is the final volume of Limits and Renewals, a trilogy based on the author's Stanton le…Read more
  •  34
    Animal Rights and Human Morality
    Environmental Ethics 5 (2): 185-188. 1983.
  •  1
    A response to Michael Moxter's account of the need for 'religious feeling' for social order, suggesting that togetherness is currently promoted in overtly non-religious ways, and that true piety may often be at odds with social - and especially with state - order.
  •  30
    Aristotle's Man
    Philosophical Review 86 (2): 241. 1977.
  •  38
    Does the Burgess shale have moral implications?
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 36 (4). 1993.
    Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life is a study of the fossils of the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. My concern is with the morals that Gould draws, with the ?new picture of life? that, he says, the reinterpreted Burgess animals compel. I conclude that his case is not established. (1) There may have been reasons to do with ?fitness? why most of the Burgess animals left no descendants, even if we cannot guess exactly what they were. (2) We do not know that our past is dotted with the kind of ma…Read more
  •  70
    Words have determinable sense only within a complex of unstated assumptions, and all interpretation must therefore go beyond the given material. This book addresses what is man's place in the Aristotelian world. It also describes man's abilities and prospects in managing his life, and considers how far Aristotle's treatment of time and history licenses the sort of dynamic interpretation of his doctrines that have been given. The ontological model that explains much of Aristotle's conclusions and…Read more